


Same Deep Water as Me

by Dienda



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Florida AU, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Mentions of Drowning, Mentions of Suicide, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-13
Updated: 2014-06-13
Packaged: 2018-02-04 12:06:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1778494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dienda/pseuds/Dienda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post canon. After everything that was done to him, Will sometimes stares at the sea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Same Deep Water as Me

The moment he wakes up, the dream vanishes like a cloud of smoke blown into the wind. Will tries to grasp it as his eyes adjust to the darkness but its images break and scatter like shards of glass. He doesn’t need to remember it, though; the sweat on his skin and the pain in his scar are more than enough clues to figure out what it was about.

He stares at the ceiling and wills his heartbeat to slow down. He tries to concentrate on his breathing; in through the nose, out through his lips.

He rubs at the scar and convinces himself that it’s not actually aching; the pain isn’t physical, it’s just his brain telling his body to hurt.

He turns his head and looks at the other side of the bed; Will can’t see his face but the relaxed motion of his back says Matthew hasn’t stirred.

Will gets to his feet, careful not to wake the dogs or the man beside him; he grabs Matthew’s sweatshirt off the back of a chair and unlocks the front door. There’s an old swing on the porch, weathered wood and a lumpy seat cushion; he huddles there, arms around his knees, and stares out at the ocean.

The moon’s a thin curve of light among the stars, not bright enough to paint the ocean beyond the ever-changing blur of the waves as they hit the shore. The only thing that makes the water real is the steady rumble of the tide. Will watches the foam froth and dissolve, and thinks that, perhaps, it would be almost pleasant to stroll down to the water and keep walking until the flow takes him away for a ride, before spitting his empty shell back onto the sand.

He worries his lower lip between his teeth; it’s not the first time he thinks about it, about killing himself. He could make, right now, a list of all the ways available just within the house. He used to think about killing for a living after all; the only difference now is that he isn’t thinking about somebody else’s death. It’s not that he wants to commit suicide, he doesn’t, but the memories, the pain of what happened in Baltimore are still so raw that, on nights like this, he wishes he could just be healed, one way or another. It’s a strange kind of therapy, almost as if, by thinking about it, he can keep himself from doing it.

The door opens with a soft murmur and Matthew peeks out with heavy eyelids.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” Will answers before turning back to the waves.

There’s a long moment of silence, he can feel Matthew’s gaze on him, assessing.

“Do you want to be alone?”

He does, but he’s aware that if he sends Matthew back to bed his mind is going to keep circling between the nightmare and the sea until the sun gilds the night with dawn.

He shakes his head.

Matt sits at the other end of the swing, feet on the cushion; the movement makes them rock slightly, with a low groan from the chain. Will lowers his own legs and reaches out to pull on his ankles until Matthew’s feet are on his lap. He follows the lines of his bones to the tip of his toes.

If this were a different kind of evening the younger man would be chatting already, making plans or stating facts in that nonchalant, deliberate manner in which he does everything, but he always seems to know when Will needs nothing more than the rolling of the surfs and the strange chirping of the insects. As it is, Matthew just leans his head back and closes his eyes; his growing hair ―always curling at the tips― flutters in the light breeze.

He’s a collection of shadows in the lack of moonlight.

Will is not in love yet but, at this point, it’s just a matter of time. He knows that when it happens, it will fall on him like a downpour, like an illness. He fears that moment as much as he anticipates it.

“I was thinking about walking into the ocean,” he says, between waves.

Matthew doesn’t move a muscle but Will can feel him become fully awake. He can almost see his mind as he takes the sentence and analyses the words and the tone, considers if it has any intent behind it, and prepares a reaction, if necessary.

“Go on,” he asks, eyes still closed.

“It would be like flying,” Will decides. “I’d sink my feet in the sand.” He wraps his hands around Matthew’s left foot. “Struggle against the heft of the whole Atlantic, until it decided to lift me up, away from the land; weightless, like a leaf in the wind.”

“Meaning you’d go into laryngospasm until you fell unconscious and the water filled your lungs.”

“Well, when you put it like that.”

Matt opens his eyes and they smirk at each other across the darkness. He finally looks out at the shoreline, eyebrows knitted.

“There are better ways,” he says, barely more than a whisper, and Will knows he’s not talking about death.

“I know.”

He leans over the space between them. Matthew meets him halfway.


End file.
